28 ROSES AND SPURS

pearance, the lamps displayed three glow-worm points
of light behind their lamp-glass. They were both
menacing and denuded. The footman would leave
them and retire to fetch the shades, which were kept
in a white cupboard in the outer hall During his
absence the butler did the thing that I hated most.
He advanced mercilessly towards the windows, pulled
down the blinds against the last sad vestiges of day-
light, and with a vicious twitch of the hand tugged
the brocaded curtains together until their fringes
kissed again after a whole day's separation. The
wooden rings of the curtains emitted upon their rods
a hollow note of protest like a xylophone. I then
knew that daylight had left me; that night with all
its hatred of me, had closed me in.

True it is that thereafter a short reprieve of com-
fort was accorded. The butler would take the three
shades from the footman. The largest" of the three
was constructed of red silk, heavily flounced and
fringed; it possessed scolloped bays punctuated
by sharp peaks; the latter suggested the points at
which a skirt-dancer would protrude her toes : one
visualised the black silk stocking of some music hall
performance ; the butler delicately affixed this vaude-
ville covering upon the brass bracket which sur-
rounded the standard lamp. The other two, which
were also flounced, but in a gay pinkish material, he
would drop less cautiously above the two Corinthian
columns. And then he would peer under the skirts
of the three shades and fussily adjust the screws which
worked the wicks* Suddenly the lamps (which had
seemed so cruel as warning eyes echoing through
their naked glass the wider and more naked panes